Dear Palegazasunnidays:

You read like an honest, very responsible and resourceful daughter, mother, and friend.  I am sorry that your father became ill with anxiety and depression and I hope that he recovers soon this year.

I want to understand better what happened with A in the context of your June 2022-Jan 2023 life events:

June 2022, your father got sick with anxiety and depression. By late August, his condition deteriorated and the man you’ve been seeing, A, has “suddenly gone cold” on you, asking for space, which you graciously gave him. In early September, A told you that “he didn’t want to be in a relationship but that he would like to remain friends“, and again, you graciously accommodated him. On Sept-Oct, your father deteriorated further and was admitted to a hospital. By Dec 2022, A made “one or two suggestive comments“, then invited you for dinner. While at his place, he asked you to stay overnight, and you declined. At the end of Dec 2022, you met A for coffee, “one thing  led to another” and you slept together. The two of you ended up in bed together on weekends during Jan 2023. Throughout this whole time you were a model+ daughter, mother, friend; helping everyone a whole lot.

“The thing is this just doesn’t feel right. I feel pretty messed up at the moment, we sleep together and I end up crying… I feel like I’ve lost my dad… My teenage sons don’t need me as much now and I feel lost without that too. And there’s A who I know doesn’t want a relationship… but I crave his company, his touch, even though I know deep down it’s not right“-  it is as if you’ve gone back-  since June last year- to being a girl/ a single, young woman (although a very responsible and resourceful one), being that you’ve been spending significantly less time being a mother and taking care of your sons, and a lot more time around and about your original family, as a daughter and sister. To add to it: there is this guy, a male teenager-like who has been using you for sex. True, you need to be touched, but you don’t want to be used: you don’t want to be friends with benefits with A– or with anyone.

“Any thoughts, advice words of experience would be welcomed because I’m finding it hard to see things with any real logic or perspective just now“- I don’t think that you want to be used for sex, and I know that you deserve better than that. Before I continue, am I on the right track?

anita

Hi Palegazesunnidays

I’m sorry to hear about your difficulties with your father’s breakdown. It sounds like you yhandling (pardon my French) a hell of a lot at the moment. You’re supporting your mom, dad brother, your children as well as your friend’s daughter. Perhaps you should plan how to scale back some of your responsibilities? If at all possible?

You have to put on your own oxygen mask before you can help others. It sounds like you might be feeling overwhelmed with everything. Do you think that’s accurate? Do you have difficulty saying no to people and find it hard to press your own needs?

Regarding A. You’re an adult and it’s 2023. I don’t think anyone needs to feel guilty about these things. You deserve some human contact and comfort with everything you are dealing with right now. You might want to have a conversation with A about any boundaries you would like in this temporary relationship. I think it’s okay if you want to enjoy this situation, but only if you do find yourself enjoying it. If you don’t, it might be time to discuss that too.

Dear Palegazasunnidays:

You are welcome. It looks like growing up, you took on a co-parent role, co-parenting your mother and brother. Seems to me that your mother dealt with her anxiety by taking on a helpless-child role (not consciously, I figure),  and you and your father shouldered the weight of life. I wonder if your father’s anxiety since June last year has to do with taking care of his helpless wife for too long…?

“I almost feel manipulated. I feel quite angry with myself“- he surely manipulate you: when he invited you to dinner at his place, he didn’t tell you that he intended to ask you to stay overnight, did he? He didn’t let you know that he was pursuing you as a friend-with-benefits, he.. just went for it. It happens often that a girl or a woman just wants to be touched, held.. but the man has other ideas. Are you going to end contact with A?

anita

Dear Palegazasunnidays:

I will reply further to you Mon morning (it is Sun 11:24 pm here). Please feel free to add anything you’d like to add, and I will respond to all in the morning.

anita

You are very welcome. I made a mistake, Palegazesunnidays: I  meant to say it was 11:24 am, not pm, therefore, I will be back to you in about 20 hours from now.

anita

Dear Palegazesunnidays:

I re-read all your posts. In this reply,  I will quote from you, comment on that quote, then quote more, comment, etc.

“I threw myself into sorting and tidying around the house, I had a huge desire to be busy, to sort things before the new year… I hurt so much inside and I’m struggling to pull myself out of the thoughts, feelings and emotions that come with it… I’m finding it hard to see things with any real logic or perspective just now”-

– what if I try, in this post, to help you just a bit, to sort and tidy your thoughts, feelings and emotions and see things with real logic or perspective, starting with your family of origin and proceeding to A:

“My mum..  was struggling to understand it all... My mum and brother had taken a backseat throughout all this as they said they didn’t know what to do or how to be helpful…I remember being the support for my mum and brother whilst my dad was working, and only having my dad to turn to, to talk to, confide in as my mum just didn’t understand how to bless her. I’ve always been her support and my brothers from a young age. They are both quite coy and in a sense naive and easily led and can misunderstand situations or conversations…  I guess some of my dad’s anxiety/depression may have come from that place. He’s mentioned feeling dragged down by doing everything and I can understand how that feels”-

– it is possible that your mother and brother suffer from mental disabilities that render them unable to understand situations and conversations and therefore, they are helpless and indeed need a lot of help. It is also possible that your mother’s coy and naive expressions and behaviors for so many years, have been partly a somewhat-calculated manipulation, one that affords her an easy kind of life, a life where she doesn’t have to struggle or do much of anything.

It is possible that your brother, while growing up, observed the dynamic at home (father having a hard life; mother- an easy life), and figured that he’d rather have an easy life, so he took on his mother’s role, while you took on your father’s role (siblings often take opposite roles).

If this is the case, or close to it, then I can imagine that your father may not be able to heal or recover from his anxiety and depression if he returns to the same family dynamic. (Maybe, just maybe he has been angry with your mother for many years, never expressed it directly, and that anger built up to his anxiety and depression breakdown).

As far as A goes: “I was confused I guess because I wanted to feel wanted, to be held etc.. A had said the same“- it is possible that it was not the same: that you wanted more of an emotional bond with him (to feel wanted as a person, to be held as a person), while he wanted more of a sexual bond (to be wanted as a man). Neither desire is wrong, but two people should be clear about what they want with each other, rather than assume.

“The thing is this just doesn’t feel right. I feel pretty messed up at the moment, we sleep together and I end up crying when I’ve gone home, and remain in a low mood/upset for a few days before I shake it off… being intimate with someone leaves me with emotion overload I guess you could say, makes me feel more lonely? It’s difficult to explain”-

-I am thinking that growing up with a helpless mother who, I am guessing, did not help you while you were growing up, and with a father who worked a lot, you were quite lonely. Perhaps keeping yourself very busy (as described in your original post) has been a way for you to distract yourself from the long-felt lonely feeling inside (in the following, I’ll refer to this long-felt lonely feeling inside as Loneliness).

When sleeping with A, you got a break from Loneliness. You felt a very different feeling, a Together Feeling. But then, when separated from him and not having a regular, reliable contact with him, the contrast  between the temporary Together Feeling and the return of Loneliness was too great, and that contrast may be the emotional overload that you experienced.

“And there’s A who I know doesn’t want a relationship, and I know I don’t want a relationship with him as I know he’s not right for me.. but I crave his company, his touch, even though I know deep down it’s not right“-

– he is not right for you, but a Together Feeling is right for you, and you crave it.

“A invited me over to dinner, and as an afterthought (in a second message) said I could stay over, that he’d give me his bed and he’d take his daughter’s.. with no funny business“-

– he referred to the idea of having sex with you as funny business. Funny business is “dishonest or unacceptable behavior” (online definition). He said it, didn’t he?

“When I questioned it later in the evening, he said he is just lonely and wanted to wake up with another person in the house on Xmas day“, “I almost feel manipulated. … As for A, I feel a sense of having been manipulated whilst at a low point… Everything is pretty much on his terms… He always asks literally last minute (that morning, that hour)..  This weekend he’s pretty much ignored me aside from a message to say he had a headache”-

– doesn’t seem like he is a lonely person, being that he doesn’t seek your company much and turns you down when you seek his company. When he told you back in Dec that he wanted to wake up with another person on Xmas day… that was poetic and Christmassy and quite deceptive, seems to me.

anita